Tracy Slaney

I became a caregiver in 2014 when my dad was diagnosed with a very rare and aggressive cancer. He passed away after only two months. The same month that he died, my mom was diagnosed with early onset dementia. She died on Boxing Day of 2019. Six weeks later, my spouse was diagnosed with stage four colorectal cancer.

If I could go back and talk to myself when my mom was diagnosed with dementia, I would say, “Look for those resources. Look for that help, look for that therapy, look for that outlet.” With my mom, I researched everything about dementia, but I didn’t step outside of that world and find something that gave me joy. I did the same when my spouse got cancer. It was just all about him and the disease and how we were going to cope.

I was still doing all my caregiving roles, and I was still being a mom, but I was depressed, I was anxious, I was overwhelmed, I was everything.

I started therapy a year ago to get to the root of things, which has helped me turn a corner and start finding me. I slowly started saying, “I’ve got to find me again somewhere in there. I’m still there. I’m buried underneath a lot of rubble and a lot of hard life experiences and a lot of trash, but I’m under there.” And I just kind of crawled out.

Some people would say advocacy is not creating time for yourself, but it most definitely is for me because it gives me that little bit of fulfillment in my cup and brings me joy. I want for someone, somewhere, to say, if she can do it, I can do it. I just want to be that person for that one person.

I had been checking out Colorectal Cancer Canada for a long time for resources for my spouse, but never for advocacy. So, I looked into it and realized that Newfoundland has one of the highest colorectal cancer rates in Canada, but we don’t have an annual fundraising initiative to raise awareness of colorectal cancer.

I jumped into it with two feet and decided to do three fundraising walks. I walked in my hometown, where we live now, and with my coworkers and we raised 10 thousand dollars. Our team was ranked 15th in Canada, and it was our first year.

It wasn’t all about raising the money. It was about the awareness, because I wish someone had told us about all those little symptoms that we swept under the carpet as getting old and something we had eaten. Had we known, my spouse would probably not be diagnosed with colorectal cancer at stage four.

What I would like to see in a National Caregiving Strategy is acknowledgement and recognition for the caregiving work that I do. I don’t necessarily want someone to come into my home and do my role. That’s not what I’m looking for. Would I do everything I’m doing now for absolutely nothing? In a heartbeat. But do I think that’s fair? No.

Finding out about CCCE made me feel like I’m swimming with the current instead of swimming upstream. It made me feel like if we all band together, someone will see us. We (the caregivers) go to every appointment, and nobody ever says, “So how are you doing? How is the glue that’s holding this show together? How’s she doing?”

 I know there’s a lot of caregivers out there. If they’re anything like me, they think they can do it all because that’s what we’re supposed to do, just be able to handle it all on our own.

I’m an open book now. I hide nothing, because hiding things got me nowhere. Pretending things were okay got me nowhere. Pretending I could take on the world got me nowhere, except in a miserable hole.

When my husband’s cancer journey started, our kids were 9 and 16 and we were given 6 to 9 months together. They’re now 14 and 21 and we’re four and a half years in. It’s not gone but we have learned to live with it.

Every day is not a great day. Some days I’m still overwhelmed, some days I’m still anxious, some days I’m still sad, but I’m not suffocated by it anymore. It’s not like a heavy blanket over me anymore. I’ve stuck my head and looked around. It was suffocating, under there all by myself so I just lifted the blanket back a little tiny bit at a time and peeked out around. And now I’m out.